


The Trials and Tribulations of Allen Walker: Exorcist, Noah, and The Most Popular Man this side of Hell.

by IceBreeze



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Gratuitous abuse of Parentheses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-01-20 01:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12422202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceBreeze/pseuds/IceBreeze
Summary: If he were asked to trace it back to a single defining moment- to one event where it seemed like nothing could ever be right again and it all went to the dogs, to that one thing that provides enough to proof that if God is real then he’s a sadistic bastard- then Allen would say it was when Komui died.In a world where things take a turn for the worst early on, Allen finds himself hunted on all sides; The Order wants him dead, The Noah want to drag him into their fold, and no-one knows what Apocryphos wants. With only the Fourteenth as his ally, he The only minor consolation to be found is that everybody else is just as miserable as he is- or, well. Those who aren't dead, at least.(AKA: Everybody suffers, nobody is happy, and Allen needs a hug).





	1. Allen Walker and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't feel my hands. This au literally started off as a tiny, tiny drabble but then it grabbed me by the ankle and ran. I still have no idea where it is going. It is less of a coherent story and more of a group of interconnected oneshots in timeline that has yet to be defined. It is entirely self-indulgent, titling and summaries are thinks that I suck at; it was either this or 'Allen Walker and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day that Never Really Ended.' This is my first fic in the D.gray Man fandom and I hope you enjoy reading it, because I enjoyed writing it.

Sometimes Allen wondered why he tries so hard. When death dogged his every step, close enough that he could see it from the corner of his eyes, when every day spat out new obstacles for him to trip over, all he wanted to do was to bury his head in his hands and scream as Crown Clown shielded him from the world. But he never did- he pushed on like he wasn’t crumbling with every step, with every curse, with every battle, and for the life of him he couldn’t figure out _why_. The world had never  given him anything, had never so much as spared him a thought before continuing to spin, leaving him left behind in the dust; there had been no equal exchange in this, no debts or blessings that could motivate him to carry on, so why should he? He owed it nothing.

_(But no, that was a lie, wasn’t it? It had given him his friends, who’d welcomed him with open arms and fought at his side, at his back, who’d welcomed him into their home and turned their backs on him in the same breath. They’d forsaken him when they learned he might be a Noah, hurried on the awakening, and now fought harder to kill him than they ever had to keep him alive._

_It had given him Mana, the kind clown who’d taught him that there could be warmth even for a wretch like him, who’d been the focal point of the best three years of his life. Mana who was the Earl who was not Mana, not his father, not anything except the man who wanted to destroy the world and be by hi- by Neah’s side, once healing wounds now forced open and festering with confusion and heart and grief._

_Cross, the man who’d dragged him out of catatonia and given him a purpose, a drive; who’d taught him and infuriated him with barely the blink of an eye, spent four years with him whilst Allen learned and grew and lived. As much as a father to him as Mana had been, despite all his faults, and yet all that remained of him was a a bloody splatter against a broken window; killed by the same Innocence now set on absorbing Allen, leaving behind a confused, aching heart and more questions than answers._

_Timcampy, the golem that had been as much of a part of Allen as his innocence and his own soul, who’d been with him through thick and thin, kept him afloat when things became too much; who he’d thought had cared for him. Created by Neah and destroyed by Apocryphos, it was doubtful he’d ever seen Allen at all._

_Crown Clown, who wouldn’t speak to Allen anymore despite being a constant by his side since birth, who’d chosen him and only now begun to regret that choice. An Innocence who’d dragged Allen through hell and high water, who wouldn’t let him die even now; Innocence, created to kill the Noah, now attached to one of the very things it wanted to destroy._

_It had given him them and taken them away, and now Allen couldn’t bring himself to keep going)._

Like now- looking across the room as Kanda and Lavi stand there, weapons drawn, eying him like they had Road, like they had Jasdevi. They looked at him and all they saw was the Noah- was Neah, like they were one person, like Allen Walker ceased to exist the moment he’d been scoped out as a host. Though, it was true, wasn’t it; he was Neah and Neah was him, as far as everyone was concerned. They shared sins, a body, the blame. His own feelings on the matter weren’t relevant.

_(Could it still be called a betrayal when they’d already declared themselves his enemies?)_

Kanda looked tired- weaker, like someone had punctured his lungs with a needle point and he was falling in on himself with every inhale, every exhale. There were scars, now, remnants of injuries recently passed; he bled just like anyone else, without the healing, without using his own life force as fuel. Now he was a human just like anyother and he probably hated every minute of it (Allen wondered if he cursed Allen for his failure- blamed him for his loss, his lack of direction; if he hated him). He was staring at Allen, his shoulders drawn in tense, eyes tight at the edges; if he didn’t know any better, Allen could almost think he looked conflicted- that he didn’t want to fight. But no- his sword was as steady as ever, his movements graceful and lethal and so very Kanda.

_(He’d only ever called Allen by his name once when they were allies, something Allen had been scrambling so long to hear, something he hadn’t relished in enough at the time, but now he would give anything to hear ‘Beansprout’ again; he’d take anything over the distant, brittle ring of ‘Fourteenth’ on a familiar tongue)._

And Lavi looked like a man who’d gone through hell and never quite recovered. He wasn’t badly injured, not recently- there weren’t even any scars beyond his bad eye, beyond his hands- but there was a weight to him, a heaviness. He stood like even the beating of his heart was a betrayal and yet he’d grind his teeth through it anyway- like it hurt to live and so he’d drag everyone else down with him. His hands- his good hand, because he only had one full one now, with the right one missing three fingers- were white knuckled on Iron Hammer, his eye dripping with venom and acid and blood that sought to drown Allen in it. He looked at Allen with nothing but hatred, no trace of the Bookman persona in sight.

_(It wasn’t right- **this wasn’t right.** Lavi always felt strongly- felt and felt until her almost collapsed under the weight of his own heart, until he tried to deny it at every corner by throwing himself into his duty- and yet, he never let it show. Not like this, anyway, not in such a display of raw emotion that it could rip the world off its hinges and throw it into chaos. He’d never been so open about his dislike, and Allen wondered what that meant for him, to break such a rule; was Allen’s existence such a sin? Or was there something more personal about it- a grudge against the Noah, passed on?_

_Or did he simply hate Allen Walker, the man in the middle?)_

Allen inhaled a deep, shuddering breath and let the mask slip in place- the false smile that fit like it was a second skin, the guileless look to his eyes,  the words he’d never say shoved down, down, down until he can almost forget they’re there. He kept his eyes on the enemy in front of him (because that was what they were now, what they would continue to be until their bones were rotting in the ground and even history had forgotten the war that had raged for so long), his awareness on the area around him, and tried to figure out his best route out of there; who knew how long he had before something else came after him? Until more exorcists were sent as backup, or perhaps even the CROWS, the finders- the ones who damned his very existence, who didn’t know him and didn’t care to, only caring that he had spat on their Order’s face and was thereby a crime against God. Until the Noah came strolling along, Wisely there to pick apart his mind and lay him bare to the world like it was just as natural as to call him ‘family,’ Jasdevi to cause chaos, dancing between pranking him, trying to kill him and trying to drag him to their Ark.

_(Until he closed his eyes to the world and let Neah take over so that he wouldn’t have to face them)._

He inhaled, activated Crown Clown, grasped a knife with his left hand, and met their attack head on. When Mugen sliced a line across his arm, narrowly avoiding cutting it off, he thought: _it doesn’t even matter_. When Lavi nearly burned down the whole street in order to take him out, he thought: _this is my path._

He did not think, _I trusted you and yet, look at us now._

_(Later, when it’s just him, the quiet presence of Neah and the itch where his injuries are slowly healing, he leans against the wall and presses the stiff skin of his left arm against his mouth. He feels where it sits, harsh and scaly against his face, and reminds himself how to breathe; how to think of anything beyond the pain and the hurt and the overwhelming feeling of suffocating beneath his own screams. He’s trapped in a metal ox, blocked off on all sides by the little betrayals, the little hurts that all add up until he struggles to reach for that age old forgiveness that used to be so easy, unable to remember what it was like to laugh or to be alone inside his head._

_Later he closes his eyes against the sting of tears and remembers the days before, days when he was still Allen Walker, exorcist, the son of Mana Walker and Apprentice of Cross Marian, a beloved friend and a boy who was not a chess piece on the board of other people’s manipulations. When the only things he had to be concerned about was when the next Akuma might appear, what to do about Master’s debts, if he’d be able to get enough food and who he could convince to spar with him. Tries to forget how he now tensed at every quiet, unassuming sound, a knife or a dirty trick always tucked away, an eye and ear open at all time; to not dwell on the fact that his life had reached the point that the only person he could trust was the voice in his head, who was one of the main reasons he ended up like this in the first place._

_Later he will be in another city, another country, already planning his next move; already heading the only way he can. Behind him, a gate shattered into fragments that no-one could follow him through, blocking off any view of where Kanda and Lavi lie. Unconscious, battered and quite possibly injured enough to prevent them from battling for a few days, but alive even though they shouldn’t be; even though he should have killed them. Spared, not because of mercy or any such grand reason, but because no matter how hard he tried, Allen still wanted to trust them._

_Because he still wasn’t willing to give up hope for the future that was slipping from his grasp)._


	2. How to become The Most Wanted Man in This World and The Next: A guide by Allen Walker.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was ironic, really, that the Millenium Earl didn't even need to lift a finger for the Exorcists to destroy themselves from within.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This happens before Chapter 1, and is where the 'Canon Divergence' tag becomes very clear.

If he were asked to trace it back to a single defining moment- to one event where it seemed like nothing could ever be right again and it all went to the dogs, to that one thing that provides enough to proof that if God is real then he’s a sadistic bastard- then Allen would say it was when Komui died. Murdered- just found in his office one morning, face first in his own blood; there’d been no explanations or warning about it, nothing to even hint someone might go after it. Perhaps that was why it was such a shock, despite how used to death they all were; perhaps that was why it had the effect it did. Lenalee was the one to find him when she was delivering the morning coffee, her scream the one to shake the building.

_(In the aftermath, it had taken the combined forces of Reever, Allen and Marie and a good few hours to coax her away from where she clung to his body, and a week of her resembling an empty coffin. Even when she did regain some semblance of life it came in the form of her attacking Levellier when he announced that he’d be taking over Komui’s position, only the interference of Link and half a dozen CROWs stopping her from killing him. She spent the next eleven days strapped to a bed, underwent several force feedings, and nearly Fell before any exorcist was allowed to see her again, and she was never quite right after that._

_She was unhinged, in free fall- the world had taken her anchor from her and without him, she only had the acid in her blood and the bonds she’d gathered for herself to sustain her. It surprised absolutely no-one that she ended up on the tightrope of no return, or that she clung to her remaining Family with a ferocity that was more disturbing than not; Komui’s death had messed up a lot of things, but none more so than his sister._

_And that, really, was just the starting point)._

In the weeks following Levellier’s instatement, the Order underwent some rather drastic changes, starting with the staff. The science department were first, with all of Komui’s inner circle either demoted, found dead, or never seen again, the people replacing them being the kinds of scientists who wouldn’t know anything about morals if they looked it up in a dictionary. Experiments became a frequent part of day-to-day life- for some people, all it took was the slightest change in synchronization and they found themselves strapped to a table without so much as a ‘hello, lovely seeing you again, time to cut you up to find what makes you tick.’ For others, they were there whenever the department could make up a feasible excuse to grab them (which, considering who was in charge, was hardly difficult; Levellier would probably say yes if they said they were trying to figure out how to create chocolate from blood).

_(Anybody who’d surpassed the critical point was part of the latter group, so the remaining Generals, Kanda and Allen became unfortunately familiar with eachother and the feeling of pain. But Kanda was their favourite, because apparently he wasn’t human enough for such a thing as restraint to matter so they could do whatever the hell they wanted with him; Allen had never known what kind of sounds a person made when being dissected and it is something he hopes never to hear again)._

Then went the medical staff; the head nurse was dragged out by CROWS without any warning, and the first thing her replacement did was to give everyone else a screening. Tests, they said, to see if they were loyal to the Order. No-one knows what happened inside those rooms, but few came out and those who did would avoid looking anyone in the eye; some Central selected staff were brought in to replace those lost, and that was that. The medical department ended up like little more than a branch of the science department, and all exorcists gained a carefully manufactured fear of injury (or, at least, became very good at hiding said injuries and making sure to learn how to tend it themselves), going to great lengths to avoid ending up there (except for Lenalee, who went about fighting like she wanted every fight to be her last, and Kanda, who never needed to go there anyway).

Unfortunately, missions were only becoming harder and harder with every passing day due to the general belief among Central that exorcists were not, as a matter of fact, human or even anything close to one, so there should be no such problem in pushing them to the breaking point. It became pretty clear that every Exorcist had to live up to the excessively high standards (that only went higher) or die trying. Surprising absolutely nobody, dying was the more common option.

_(Like poor Timothy, who had only **been** an exorcist for a year- was barely a day past ten- and yet had been expected to retrieve some Innocence on his own, in Edo. Mightra killed him, and the Innocence was destroyed. Tiedoll and Zokalo practically had to sit on Klaud to stop her from tearing the Order to the ground._

_On her next mission, she followed in his path. Allen could only hope they had found peace in death, because there was certainly none in life)._

Privacy soon became a thing of the past, with everyone being assigned a watchdog. Granted, Link was the only one who’d been explicitly placed there with the intention to kill Allen should he be deemed a threat whilst attempting to be discreet about his CROW status, but the whole be-by-your-side-twenty-four-seven bit was as universal as you could get. The orders of the CROW varied depending on who they were watching (Miranda, for example, was being watched so they could avoid her trying to attempt suicide again, whilst Lenalee was viewed almost as much of a threat as Allen was, albeit for different reasons), but they were always there, masked or not, and it conveniently crushed any camaraderie that could have been shared.

_(You’d be surprised at how hard it is to joke when you have several people sneering down your neck, fully aware that even the slightest perceived misstep will find you bound on the floor and screaming; even Allen and Lavi struggled to maintain any effects of good humour, and they both literally made careers out of performing._

_Silence became a very familiar thing for those months)._

A year dragged like this, any semblance of what had once been being stamped out of the Order and exorcists alike. It showed, even in Link despite how he wasn’t directly affected by it; Allen felt more and more like he was seeing ghosts where there had once been his friends. Things cracked, crumbled, steadily falling to pieces as the Earl and Central let the pie burn, the tower of resentment and hurt and fear building up, up, up until all it would take was the slightest breath to break it. And then came Alma, the Earl, and everything came crashing down.

(He’d known that fate wasn’t kind, but this was just getting ridiculous).

Allen was dragged into the ruins of the Asian branch (Tokusa and the Third’s all crushed mere moments ago, grief and regret a still bleeding wound) to find Kanda, Mugen gripped in his hands, his hair ashen and skin cracking through the force of his rage. Beneath him, Alma lay crumbling, and to the side the Noah family were perched, watching with great interest as the tortured soul let out one final cry when it was destroyed at the hands of their only friend. But everything else faded into the background when the Earl (his greatest enemy, the creature who sought to destroy the world, who’d caused him to kill his father) came to land barely a foot away, the suit falling away and Allen couldn’t remember how to breathe. For there, in front of him, stood Mana. Mana, the clown who had treated him with more kindness than he’d ever known, who’d given him a name, who’d taught him to juggle and smile and all things in between. Mana- _his father_ \- who’d died saving him from an accident and then died again at Allen’s hand, who given him happiness and crushed it all in the same breath; his saviour and his curse. Mana, who stood there with the mark of the Noah on his forehead, smiling at Allen with the kind of warmth that makes his eyes ache with tears.

Mana, who held a palm to Allen’s face like he was 11 years old again, and said:

“I missed you, Neah.”

The taste of blood flooded Allen’s mouth as he bit through his cheek, struggling to hold himself together when he felt like he might shake apart _(whyisthishappeningdoesn’therecognisemeI’m **not** Neahso **why** -)_. He wondered, around the ringing in his ears and the pain building in the back of his head, if this is what it was like to have the sun ripped away from you.

_(Please let this be a nightmare or some cruel, twisted hallucination; let it not be real. Let him wake up, let it end, **let it end** -) _

Then Kanda was stabbing him and he couldn’t even scream from the pain because he was, quite promptly, ejected from his own mind without so much of a by-your-leave. He found himself in a field of wheat, watching memories that weren’t his-

_(Make it stop, Mana please, make it stop, why are you doing this, weren’t we brothersmyfather **family** , I hate them, I hate them, **I’ll kill them all** -)_

chained to a chair, staring up at the face of the Noah who had dragged Allen’s life into disarray, who was trying to possess his fucking body-

_(I didn’t want this, I never agreed to this, how could you, why me, why my fucking body, whywhywhywhywhywhywhyw-)_

shoved onto the sidelines as the world moved on without him. He was pushed aside, forgotten in favour of the Noah that everyone seemed to want more than they ever did him, and when he was finally returned possession of his own fucking body, it was to find himself in a cell. His arm bound, Timcampy swollen to the size of horse chained down not ten feet away, CROWS at the door watching his every move; he doesn’t even know what he did and yet, they give him no sympathy, no help, not even so much of an answer. They just left him there, without food, half convinced he was going to die without even finding out how long he’d been there, until Link entered with a bowl of porridge and spoke without pause, detailing everything from what happened to what the Vatican had decided to do about him with the kind of flat tone you’d expect in a discussion about paint samples.

And then Allen almost wished he had never found out.

_(The fourteenth possessing his body for that short-but-still-too-much time, declaring his intention to become the Millenium Earl; Tokusa and the Branch head, dead at his hand; Kanda attacking anyone and everyone in his grief-rage-horror. Mana, still out there, still the Earl, more shrouded in confusion than he’d ever been. And Allen himself, restrained and tethered by Link, his fate still undecided even as they declared him too dangerous to walk free._

_The house of cards he’d built for himself had been kicked to pieces, and Allen had never wanted to hate something so much in his life. He wanted to hate someone, anyone- Link for putting him here, Kanda for kickstarting the takeover, Cross for all his secrets, whoever the hell offered up his body like some sick gamble- he wanted to hate, to curse, to scream and shout and cry because_ this wasn’t fair. _He’d done nothing wrong, and yet he was the one to take the fall. But he couldn’t, because try as he might, Allen couldn’t hate people; he’d lost that right the day he killed Mana._

_He wonders if he’d ever really had it)._

Allen had thought that he’d die in that cell, buried far away from any trace of warmth, executed for things he had no control over, but the Cardinal- but _Apocryphos_ came and even that was ripped apart. Link was killed because he was too weak to do anything, Crown Clown all but gone from his mind because of something shoved inside him, a murmur of ‘Become one with me’ to haunt his nightmares, and the only rescue he received branded him a traitor in the eyes of everyone he knew.

 _(And even they didn’t do it for him, not really, not at all; they came because of the Earl. Because of Mana and the Fourteenth and whatever the hell it was they saw when they looked at Allen because it certainly wasn’t_ him. _Yes, Road could say all she wanted about loving him, but she’d never put him above her family, and Tykki had already proven twice before that he had absolutely no qualms about killing Allen._

_Sad, really, that nobody ever liked him for Allen Walker, for Red, for the boy with the weird arm who just wanted a home. Sad, that even after all these years, he’d never truly known love in any of its shapes or forms)._

Alone. That was how Allen had started life and how he found himself once more. He had no allies, little knowledge as to what was going, no place where he could go- all he had was a voice in his head, the shadows that dogged his every step, and a parasite inside his arm. The war was reaching its climax, more fierce than ever, and Allen was now the third side in it; the one everybody wanted to kill. He was alone and even now, he had to keep moving forward; he had to live. To survive, because that was all he knew how to do.

_(If Allen was asked how it all ends, he would say it was the moment he walked through the gate to the Ark with Timcampy on his shoulder, the Order burning behind him and Krory unconscious on the ground behind him._

_If asked how it ended, he would say it was the moment he walked away)._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are greatly appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are greatly appreciated!
> 
>  
> 
> [My tumblr, polyhymina.](http://polyhymina.tumblr.com/tagged/my-writings)


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